Vets group honors 100-year-old for service

WWII Navy Veteran Robert Kramer is seen at his house in Ocala, Fla., on Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Kramer turned 100 on October 27 and received a certificate of thanks for his years of service on the USS Wisconsin from his friends and family and members of Marion County Veterans Helping Veterans.

Jacqui Janetzko/Star-Banner Correspondent

By Andy FillmoreCorrespondent

Published: Friday, March 22, 2013 at 1:48 p.m.

Last Modified: Friday, March 22, 2013 at 1:48 p.m.

Dorothy Conro listened this week as her father, Robert Kramer, talked about his World War II service — just as she had 68 years ago.

“I used to sit by his chair, and he would tell stories like when his ship, the U.S.S. Wisconsin, went through the Panama Canal. He said the crew used mattresses along the sides to protect her paint,” Conro, 75, said Wednesday.

Kramer, who lives with his daughter and her husband, LeRoy Conro, was honored at their home that day with a certificate from Veterans Helping Veterans of Marion County for Kramer's service as well as his 100th birthday, which he celebrated last October.

Dorothy Conro, formerly of Elmont, N.Y., moved here about 20 years ago. She recalls listening to World War II news reports on the radio with her mom, also named Dorothy, who died in 1988.

Kramer was born near Brooklyn, N.Y., and left high school to work as a plant engineer at the Sloane Furniture Company, where his father, an immigrant from Germany who escaped Adolf Hitler's early impact, had worked.

“Right after Pearl Harbor, I joined the Navy,” Kramer said.

He said the U.S.S. Wisconsin had a crew of about 3,000 when he served, adding that he “served on the ship with fire control.” He helped direct massive 16-inch guns toward island targets to support American troops at the battles of Iwo Jimo and Okinawa.

“We were part of the (naval) blockade around the island when U.S. troops raised the American flag on Iwo Jima,” Kramer said. “I was stationed in a post 12 decks high, several hundred feet up.”

Kramer's keen mind for figures allowed him to do advance calculations on artillery coordinates, which were fed to fire control equipment, thus saving the gun crews valuable time, Dorothy Conro said.

She also interjected a family tale about her dad's service on the ship, in which he encountered the captain early one morning after a few days at sea with a cup of coffee in his hand: “The captain said, ‘Swabie, I'm supposed to be the first one to get a cup of coffee in the morning' and told my dad he was assigned to the high position.”

“I can still remember watching my mother's face as she listened to (radio announcer) Gabriel Heatter read news about ships in jeopardy. I may not have understood it all, but I knew if it was good or bad by the look on mom's face,” Dorothy Conro said.

According to Old Time Radio at www.otr.com, Heatter's signature sign-on phrase, “There's good news tonight,” started after the U.S. sank a Japanese destroyer in WWII.

Earlier war news had been “darker and darker,” the website states.

Kramer remained in service through the duration of World War II.

Hank Whittier, executive director of Veterans Helping Veterans, said the certificate was to “honor Kramer for his service to our country and his 100 years.”

Whittier said recognizing service was one outreach of the Ocala organization, which supports veterans and their families. The organization is expanding their Heroes Shouldn't Be Homeless program following their recent involvement in assisting with housing for an Iraq war veteran in Belleview.

Longtime family friends Beverly and John Deakins also joined the presentation for Kramer. John Deakins, a Navy veteran who served on a destroyer in the Vietnam War, praised Kramer's service in a position directing fire from the battleship to support American troops.

Conro said her dad's return from the war was forecasted by a coconut — an unusual item in New York — lying on the living room floor, which her dad had stuck in his duffle bag in the Pacific Islands.

“I had just came home from school and saw the coconut, then my dad came around the corner. I just remember crying a lot,” she said.

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